Pianist Fredrik Ullén has taken on the largest single cycle of etudes in history by virtue of agreeing to record composer Kaikhosru Sorabji's mammoth 100 Transcendental Studies for piano, written between 1940 and 1944 but never before recorded. Fredrik Ullén Plays Kaikhosru Sorabji's 100 Transcendental Studies 1-25 is the first volume of these works for the Swedish label BIS. Individual etudes are not necessarily out of hand; most are miniatures, the longest (No. 24) coming in at a little under six minutes and the shortest ...
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Pianist Fredrik Ullén has taken on the largest single cycle of etudes in history by virtue of agreeing to record composer Kaikhosru Sorabji's mammoth 100 Transcendental Studies for piano, written between 1940 and 1944 but never before recorded. Fredrik Ullén Plays Kaikhosru Sorabji's 100 Transcendental Studies 1-25 is the first volume of these works for the Swedish label BIS. Individual etudes are not necessarily out of hand; most are miniatures, the longest (No. 24) coming in at a little under six minutes and the shortest (No. 9) at just under a minute. They are not merely sketches combined under the general heading of "etude," and each piece genuinely addresses some aspect of transcendental keyboard technique. Stylistically, the pieces work forward from the example of Scriabin and Busoni, but are written at such a horrendous level of difficulty one wonders whom among his contemporaries Sorabji had in mind when writing this music. Would the Horowitzes, Giesekings, or Artur Rubinsteins have taken...
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